(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 6 - 17th September 2015

Peace and quiet never lasted. The good times could roll for a while, but never forever. Natasha was sure she should have learned long ago never to stop bracing for impact. Something was always coming, usually something bad.

When the alarm sounded at the Avengers compound, one unseasonably mild day in September, just as she and Yelena seemed to be making real headway in helping Wanda Maximoff take proper control of her powers, it couldn't mean anything good. She knew for sure she was right when she saw Thor, newly returned from outerspace, battered and bruised, and sans one eye.

"What's happening? What do we need to prepare for?" asked Tony, agitated but take-charge, all at once.

"There is no threat, not anymore." Thor shook his head, looking ten years' older than the last time they had seen him, even though it had been only a handful of months. "But when I tell you of what might have been..."

He looked away then, something akin to pain in his remaining eye, as he swayed awkwardly in place.

"Okay, we need to get him someplace we can check him over," Tony advised, yelling for back-up, even as Natasha and Yelena scrambled to lend support.

Within the hour, the Avengers were once again assembled, in the conference room this time. Thor was sat in a larger chair than anyone else, hooked up to a couple of machines and an IV besides. So far, he hadn't said very much, just a few broken sentences that hadn't made any real sense on their own.

Now, he said he was feeling better. That Stark's technology and medicines were surprisingly helpful. He was feeling stronger, better nourished, somewhat recovered, and he needed his team, his friends to know all that has come to pass.

"When I returned to Asgard with the sceptre, determined to keep it safe in Odin's vault, I found my father much changed. It was a shock to all when we discovered that the Allfather had been banished and replaced by... by Loki"

"Loki?" Bruce gasped, shaking his head, "but you said..."

"I saw him die," Thor agreed, nodding that was true, "but as you all know, my brother is more than skilled in trickery and misdirection. He had fooled us all, once again, pretending to be killed, only to usurp my father and take the throne in his place. Naturally, I was happy to see Loki alive, but more than angry to have been duped.

"In any case, many weeks passed, a great many things happened, none of which are relevant at present. What matters is that, in time, Loki did confess to me the true nature of the sceptre he wielded here on Earth. The same that made monsters of the Maximoff children.

"He was gifted this weapon by another. A great Titan by the name of Thanos. He had a plan of his own. To gather six great sources of power, known as the infinity stones. The glowing rock within the sceptre is one such stone. Had he gained all six, he would have had untold power, the like of which might have ended all the worlds as we know them."

"But he doesn't have them." Natasha shook her head, trying to keep the quiver from her voice. "The sceptre was in the vault on Asgard..."

"And there it remains." Thor nodded his agreement. "Though I am sure Thanos would have come for it, I was lucky to have the intelligence of his plans from Loki, and in a timely fashion. With this information, I was able to offer the people of Asgard, as well as a couple of neighbouring worlds, the chance to look into this mad Titan, to find a way to ensure he was stopped.

"Make no mistake, it was a most ferocious battle that was fought. Lives were lost, on both sides, but when the dust settled, we did reign victorious."

"Lives aren't all that was lost," said Clint, staring pointedly at Thor's lack of right eye.

"A small price to pay, given what I heard from Thanos' own lips, before I severed his head from his body, ending all of his evil plans for good," said the demi-god, shaking his head. "He spoke not only of ruling Midgard or Asgard, but all worlds. Worse than ruling, his ultimate goal was to wipe out half of all living creatures everywhere. All this he might have done, with the merest snap of his fingers, had he assembled the stones."

Natasha felt James' hand grip her own a little more tightly, looked up and saw his face was pale with the same shock and fear that she herself was fighting not to feel. This was big. Bigger than anything they ever faced before, and that included the war James and Steve had fought in, and the Battle of New York besides. There had been a being that wanted half of all living creatures dead, and there were powerful crystals out there somewhere that could allow somebody else to try the same thing.

"So, the immediate threat is gone," said Steve, his voice as unsteady as Natasha had ever heard it before, "but these infinity stones, what's to stop some other maniac going after them in the future?"

"As far as we know, the locations of all are not known to any one being," Thor confirmed. "Three are under the protection of Asgard. Another is rumoured to have long ago been lost to time and space, though it cannot be proved for certain. One more is said to have such a price required to earn it, that it would be next to impossible to obtain. The last, I am afraid, is suspected to be here on Midgard, though as yet, I know not where."

An uneasy silence passed over the large table, each Avenger seemingly lost in their own personal thoughts, for what seemed like minutes or even hours, though it was probably not more than a few seconds, at most.

"The one on Earth, we should start looking into that," Stark suggested, calling up a digital screen in the air before him within a second. "If these things are as all-powerful as they seem, then we have to know it's secure. After that, we'll worry about the others and what they might all be capable of together."

He said it so matter-of-factly, like it was just another day at the office, but Natasha knew fear when she heard and saw it, no matter how a person tried to hide it away. She almost wished she didn't know that Tony was freaking out on the inside, but she did. Worst of all, she knew that she was too, and James, and Steve, and Yelena, and everybody else around the table, except perhaps for Thor who had already been through too much and was suffering too keenly to be thinking or feeling anything else.

An hour later, in the car on the way back to the sanctuary of their own apartment, Natasha wasn't feeling any better. She wasn't at all surprised when James called her on it.

"You're worrying," he said, no question about it, he just knew.

He knew her so well these days that it ought to scare Natasha to death, but it didn't. She trusted him and loved him so much, it was actually a comfort to have him know her inside and out. She wouldn't trade the closeness they had for all the world.

"I think even I can be expected to worry a little about a psychotic alien who wanted to eliminate half of all life," she said, more snippily than she meant to, then she sighed. "I'm sorry, I just... Things were good for a while. It was all going too well, I should've guessed that... that something awful was right around the corner."

"Except it's not," said James, frowning some. "You heard what Thor said. This crazy Thanos guy is dead. He can't do what he planned to do. Even when he was alive, he wasn't even close to having all those stones."

"But he was trying," Natasha told him earnestly. "James, don't you see? If he was trying, then there will be someone else, something else that will try. When the war was over, the Allies won, but that doesn't mean there'll never be another lunatic who wants to take over the world. There have been several in the last seventy years, one of them just a couple of years ago, and he brought an army from space to back him up."

"And we beat him," James told her fast. "You and me and the Avengers, we beat Loki and his army, and if anybody else comes, we can beat them too."

She opened her mouth to answer that, but the words got stuck. She loved his confidence, she truly did, and it wasn't that she didn't think he had a point. Most enemies could be defeated, had been, so far. There was every chance that the Avengers could keep the bad guys at bay if they came again. The real question wasn't if they could, it was if they wanted to. If she and James wanted to spend the rest of their lives together just fighting, forever.

"What?" he asked when she continued to stare at him without saying a word.

"You're probably right," she said eventually. "Whatever comes, we'll deal with it."

She nodded briefly, then put her head against the passenger window and watched the traffic barely move for a few more blocks. What else could she do?

Steve's call brought on the first genuine smile that Bucky had managed all day. The news was good, and just a little amusing, but mostly good. In spite of all the time Steve and Yelena had been spending together, it seemed nothing had really happened as of yet, at least, not until today, when he had finally asked her if she wanted to go out on a date. Of course, she accepted, and so, they were headed out to dinner.

"I just thought you both should know," he told Bucky, clearing his throat. "I mean, I don't know... She's a nice girl, or maybe nice is the wrong word. I'm really not sure she would appreciate it but, well, you know what I mean right?"

"I know what you mean," Bucky assured him, feeling nostalgic, so easily able to picture the little, skinny version of Steve Rogers he knew so well years before when he heard him talk like that, rather than the great Captain America that he was now. "I was starting to wonder when you guys were ever going to get around to admitting you liked each other. It's about time."

"That's what I thought." Steve sighed. "After everything Thor said... I don't know. I guess it just reminded me that waiting around usually leads to disappointment, in the end. There are very few second chances. You really can't afford to waste them."

Whether he was talking about life in general, or love more specifically, Bucky couldn't be sure and didn't like to ask. The last thing he wanted to bring up to his best buddy was Peggy Carter, not when he was headed out on a first date with a potential new love.

"Have a great time," he said instead, hanging up from the call a moment later.

He turned to find Natasha standing by the window, staring out at the rain, absently stroking Alpine, who was stretched out on the sill.

"Steve's taking Yelena to dinner," he said in the silence. "First date," he confirmed, waving the phone to let her know that was what the call had been about.

Though she nodded and even raised a small smile, it was obvious something was bothering her. After their conversation in the car earlier, he had to assume it still had to do with everything Thor had told them about Thanos and the infinity stones. He just didn't know exactly what was worrying her so much or how to find out, except to ask her outright.

"Natalia?" he said softly, moving up close behind her and wrapping an arm around her waist. "Talk to me," he urged her, his chin on her shoulder.

She took in a breath and let it out slowly, not quite a sigh, but almost. Leaning back into his embrace, she took a moment or two before she finally spoke.

"I got comfortable," she admitted, so softly he might not have heard if he wasn't so close. "I actually started thinking that this was how it was going to be. You and me, and Alpine, this place..." she trailed off, suddenly turning in his arms and facing him head on. "I'm sorry. I guess I just let my guard down, and when Thor was talking about a bigger threat than the world has ever seen... It just reminded me how easily everything can be taken away."

Her eyes moved around their cosy little apartment, passing over Alpine as he hopped down from his perch and ran into the kitchen where his water bowl waited for him, before finally her gaze settled on Bucky's own.

"You made it impossible for me to imagine living without you now."

She made it sound almost like an angry accusation, and yet, she was smiling when she said it, even as tears glistened in her eyes. Bucky had no way to answer that, only hoping she knew he felt exactly the same, as he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against her own. She really did mean the whole world to him, and living without her, he couldn't bear to picture what that would be like either.

"You know, after I woke up seventy years forward from where I started, I realised the future is almost never what you expect, but that doesn't mean it all has to be bad. Of all the people in the world, we both ought to know, you have to live for the present, take it for the gift that it is, and put what comes next out of your head. It's the only way to really live. You taught me that."

She blinked up at him then, softly kissed his lips, and whispered; "I love you, James Barnes."

"I love you too, Natalia," he promised her, just the same.

No matter what else happened, at least that was something of which they could both be certain.

To Be Continued...